


The Other Side

by DanzaNelFuoco



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dubious Consent, Flirting, M/M, Manipulation, Rape/Non-con Elements, What-If, changing side, discussing ethics, virgin L
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:41:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22972681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanzaNelFuoco/pseuds/DanzaNelFuoco
Summary: “Well, here we are, Light Yagami. What is it that you wanted to show me?”Light turns to him, unzipping his sweatshirt. “Undress.”“Excuse me?”Light doesn’t repeat it, just takes off his tennis t-shirt and throws it away, without taking his eyes off him.Ryuzaki shivers as Light proceeds to kick away his track pant and then he’s hooking the waistband of his boxers and L slightly panics. “We’re… ah, we’re not having sex, Light-kun.”The student chuckles. “That wasn’t my intention, Ryuzaki. Please, take off your clothes.”
Relationships: L/Yagami Light
Comments: 16
Kudos: 140
Collections: COWT - Clash Of the Writing Titans/Chronicles Of Words and Trials





	The Other Side

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [【L月/授翻】The Other Side另一个世界](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23124040) by [TINOJM17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TINOJM17/pseuds/TINOJM17)



> Written for the COW-T #10 (week 4, mission 3), prompt: thou shall not kill
> 
> So at some point in the anime/manga L says something along the line of "I could have become Kira, if..." and well, that's all it took me to write this (and also, listening to "the other side" from "the greatest showman") 
> 
> I really hope they're as in character as they could be, considering this is a fic.  
> This moves from the idea that Light is very much prepared to use feelings and sex to manipulate people in doing what he wants, and that L has a dubious morality (somehow I don't think Misa and Light imprisonment followed the Geneva convention)
> 
> Chinese translation available here thanks to TINOJM17

The plan is insane, so of course, it’s gonna work. 

Light might just be the craziest person on Earth, but again he has become a serial killer and a God, that doesn’t exactly vouch for mental stability. 

So that’s how he goes to the tennis match with Ryuzaki - with L if he can believe him and right now Light is betting in his life on the skeletal and too pale man in front of him to be the greatest detective ever - and that’s how he asks him out. 

Crazy. 

Genius. 

Well, but the distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. 

So Light asks him out, feigns surprise when L says “I suspect that you, Light Yagami, are in fact Kira” and laugh and still brings him to his favorite café, because why not, this is how Light Yagami, the best student in Japan, would behave while pretending to not be Kira. 

Light lets Ryuzaki spread all his little accusations, all his subtexts, and veiled threatenings and he smiles and laughs and feigns offense trough his ordeal, all the right expressions at the right moments. 

He lets Ryuzaki pull out the photos of the messages Kira sent him, plays the lab rat role, sorting the photo by number, by meaning, bowing his head when Ryuzaki pulled up a fourth and false photo, scolding him for not thinking about it. 

Light lets him think everything is going as Ryuzaki plans, and wonders when it will be the right moment for his move. 

The bantering over the messages are just tiring him, so maybe now it’s the moment. 

“Then, if you were me, faced with someone who might be Kira, how would you check if he was Kira?”

“I would try to have him say something that wasn’t broadcast to the public, that only Kira would know. Kinda what you were doing just now.”

“Truly amazing. I’ve asked several detectives that same question and most of them needed a few minutes to answer. But you… you immediately thought of a scenario in which Kira is speaking directly with the investigator. I’m impressed. Your deductive abilities are amazing, Light.”

And then, Lights bites his lips and looks at him from under his lashes. 

“I - I - ” Light stutters, _stutters!_ , and Ryuzaki looks lost, “Thank you, it really means a lot from you.” Admiration, but not enough to look like a sycophant, not enough to be suspicious. 

“I just say what I see,” L recovers, fast enough. “You truly are amazing,” he pushes. 

And if Light were Kira he would flatter him even more. 

But Light drops it, sipping his coffee, hiding behind the mug. 

Surely L has misread something in this exchange. 

“It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, though. The more impressive your answers, the more of a suspect you become,” he points out, hoping to unbalance Kira.

And that’s his cue. 

“Well, I think maybe I can prove you I’m not Kira, but…” Light looks down into his mug as if his coffee holds the exact phrasing he needs. 

“But?” L raises an eyebrow, not impressed. What now?

“You’ll have to follow me to a place. I can’t show you here.” 

It’s dangerous. It could be a trap. 

It could mean his death. 

But no, no, Kira would never kill him with a different weapon than the supernatural - or at least very technologically progressed - one that he’s using to become a deity. 

Besides, L has always been the gambler. 

“Make way.” 

* * * 

When Light stops in front of their destination, Ryuzaki wants to gauge his eyes out to check if they’re actually working. 

A love motel. Light Yagami has brought him to a love motel. 

“What’s the meaning of this?” 

Light turns to him, red spreading on his checks. “It’s not what you think. It thought it would be safe and neutral ground.” 

“It’s not neutral if you choose it.” 

“I can make you pick another one in this area.” 

“Why this area?”

“Because I’ve chosen it. If I had you take a random hotel I couldn’t be sure it would be safe and neutral.” 

L wonders what exactly Light means with “safe and neutral”.

“So?” Light inquires, “Do you want to go somewhere else?” 

It could be a bluff, but Light seems earnest enough. 

He ponders the idea of suggesting the other way around, for L to choose a different area and Light to decide the place, but somehow he suspects the student would reply that the detective may have wired and prepared every room in every hotel in the area.

Paranoid.

Suspicious.

It doesn’t matter that L would have really done it, if only he had had any idea he could end up with Kira in a motel room.

L is about to nod and choose another structure in the street when it occurs to him that Light may have just done the same, prepared every hotel with a trap. 

Paranoid.

That has saved his life a lot, but now he’s gambling his life, trusting Light to not kill him at least for the time being, so a little trust he should have. 

“No, this is just fine.”

Light doesn’t look relieved, doesn't look like someone who wanted him to choose this particular hotel. But then again, he doesn't even look like a serial killer, maybe he’s just that good at lying. 

Ryuzaki lets Light approach the reception, asking for a room, and then follows him into the lift. 

The ride to the fifth floor - the fourth actually, _shin_ , death, if only the Japanese weren’t that superstitious - is silent. 

Light looks at his image reflected on the button panels and L doesn’t even try to start a conversation. He wonders what on Earth he’s getting into. Light is blushing like a schoolgirl, like this is exactly what it looks like…

Except it can’t be. 

Or can it?

The student opens the door of chamber 519 and Ryuzaki is surprised by how lavish it is, too lavish for a university student who doesn’t work, with a living room separated from the bedroom and a bathroom that’s way too big. 

“Well, here we are, Light Yagami. What is it that you wanted to show me?” 

Light turns to him, unzipping his sweatshirt. “Undress.” 

“Excuse me?” 

Light doesn’t repeat it, just takes off his tennis t-shirt and throws it away, without taking his eyes off him. 

Ryuzaki shivers as Light proceeds to kick away his track pant and then he’s hooking the waistband of his boxers and L slightly panics. “We’re… ah, we’re not having sex, Light-kun.”

The student chuckles. “That wasn’t my intention, Ryuzaki. Please, take off your clothes.” 

It doesn’t reassure L, but he won’t be beaten by physical proximity or… intimacy. Ugh. 

So Ryuzaki pulls over his white and worn shirt and lets his jeans crumble on the floor. 

“Everything,” emphasizes Light, doubling to take off his boxers, and L wills himself not to blush as he does the same. 

So, how exactly did he end up stark naked in a love motel with possibly Kira? 

Light moves to the bathroom, gesturing him to follow and turns on the shower, hot water steaming almost immediately, before going in. 

“What are you waiting for?” He asks and Ryuzaki asks himself if Light isn’t lying after all and this is exactly what it looks like. But no, he may have no idea nor personal experience in this field, but he’s pretty sure the only way Light wants to screw with him is mental. 

When he enters the shower Light pushes him against the wall and L loses his foot, so he doesn't have any leverage to kick back. 

Light doesn't allow him to fall, but pins him to the wall, knocking his legs apart and pushing his hand between his tights. 

“What are you -” Ryuzaki words get choked out by the spray of water trickling in his mouth and the pain. 

Light’s finger trusts in his ass, dry, and it hurts as he rummages inside him.

Then Light is out him, retreating with a calculating glint in his eyes that makes Ryuzaki shivers, 

“I apologize, but I don’t trust you enough to leave out the possibility of you having a bug up your ass.”

Wire. 

Yes, fuck. 

He should have realized before, the idea nagging in the corner of his mind if only this type of human interaction weren’t his blind spot. He had been fooled like a newbie by what? The inability to understand if Light was flirting with him or not? Shit. 

Ryuzaki feels the possibility of the boy in front of him being Kira skyrocket to 99,9%. 

He’s probably gonna kill him too, 89%. 

“And what are you gonna tell me that you don’t want me to record?” he keeps up his façade of imperturbability, ignoring the fact that he had Light’s fingers up his ass without his consent less than a minute ago. 

“If I were you, faced with someone who might be Kira, how would I check if he was Kira?” Light asks rhetorically, quoting him, and smiles, all teeth, and sharp edges, like he’s progressively transitioning to Kira under his eyes. “Well, I would ask him.” 

“Ask him?”

“Yes. Ask me.” 

This isn’t going as L had expected. This isn’t… right. Light is supposed to hide and lie and now… what is he doing now?

“Are you Kira, Light Yagami?” Ryuzaki asks and surely the answer will be ‘of course not’, but he’s not so sure anymore. 

“Yes,” Light invades his space, pressing him against the wall again, “yes, I am.”

Ryuzaki feels the adrenaline rushing in his vein. How long will he take for Kira to kill him? Will he be able to communicate with the headquarters in some way, least his death would be wasted?

“Why are you telling me?” 

“I’m giving myself up. I’m taking away the challenge,” Light chuckles, “You came to me at the university, _L_ , you got me there, that was bold and really smart. And I came to you here. We're even. Game over.” 

Light presses the palm of his hands against his chest, over his heart, brushing his nipple, because that, the physical contact, is making L uncomfortable - who would have thought, L the virgin - and Light isn’t someone to give up leverage. 

“Everything you do, now, it’s no longer a win, for I yielded.” 

Now, if the person in front of him isn’t L, but just some henchman with a moral compass, Light is as good as dead. 

Light has done his researches, knew everything could be known about the mysterious detective even before, but now he has dug up everything he could find and what he gathered from his intelligence operation is that L doesn't care about justice, doesn't care about doing the right thing - he actually is very willing to bend the rules if that helps him and he’s prepared to do a lot of off-the-record things if it means solving the case. Because what L really _craves_ is the game, the challenge, the solving of the crime, not the crime per se. 

“So, you’re cheating your way out,” L states, contemplatively, with an edge of offense, not enough disguised in his tone. 

“Yes, you may say that. But now the game can move forward.” 

Light moves away and L takes a little to realize he’s still plastered to the wall even if Kira is no longer pinning him there. 

The killer turns off the water and takes a towel, offering one to the detective. Then he pads out of the bathroom, leaving wet footprints on the moquette. 

L follows him in the second room, the bedroom, eyeing his clothes crumpled on the floor, willing the wire in his shirt to not be so useless. 

Light closes the door behind L’s back and turns on the radio, pop music filling the room. “One can never be too cautious.” 

“Of course,” L nods because this is what he would do too. 

Disturb every interception there could be. 

Be paranoid. 

One can never be too cautious. 

“Take a seat,” Light indicates the chair at the desk and then leaves him. 

L brings his legs up, sitting in his strange position, feeling like he needs every inch of intellect he can gather. 

Light comes back with a white sheet of paper that he puts on the table, shifting it toward him with two fingers. 

“You wanted to know? I’m offering you knowledge.” 

“What is this?”

“This,” he taps on the sheet with his index, leaving it pinned down with his middle finger, “is how I kill.”

L looks at the piece of paper in front of him, so white and so innocently common. 

“How do I know you aren't a mythomaniac?”

Light smiles. “Well, for once there never was a fourth message, you made it up.”

L nods even if it's not enough. He could have deduced it, made a leaped of faith… but no, L wanted to trap him with the fourth picture, it doesn't make sense to not believe him now. 

Then Light takes a pen from the stationary set on the desk and offers it to L. 

“Here, kill me.”

L eyes the pen as if it were a grenade, ready to explode at his first touch. 

“What?”

“I’m offering myself up. You know my name, you know my face. It’s all you need to kill me. Go on, write my name.”

He’s bluffing, he must be bluffing. 

L takes the pen. 

“Go on, the floor is yours, stop me.” 

And L is really tempted to. 

_Game over, Kira._

But it wouldn't be his victory, not when Kira as done all but giving him the gun, take the safety off and pointing it at his own head. 

“Why do you want so much for me to kill you?”

“Oh, I don’t actually want you to. I'm fond of living, but… can't you fell the temptation? Save the world by killing the bad guy?”

 _I suppose I do_ , Lawliet thinks. 

But is it right to do so? 

‘You shall not kill’, the fifth commandment, one of the rules he had lived obliging - because he needes rules, he had always needed rules, a limit, a stop, a line he couldn’t cross, otherwise anything would do, anything could be done and it wasn’t right, it wasn’t normal. 

‘You shall not kill’, Watari had impressed in his mind, along with the idea that he should work for the good side of the world, and what side was it, had asked five years old Lawliet, but Watari hadn’t replied. ‘You’ll know when the time comes.’

But Lawliet didn’t know anything about ethics, about empathy. Lawliet needs someone to point him in the right direction and unleash him. 

Light had seen it through, he was there for the thrill of the rush, not for justice. 

“How do I know this is not a trap? How do I know this really works?”

Light nods, as if he had expected such a complaint, and turns on the small television. He zaps until he finds a report of some crime and stops at the apprehension of a murderer. 

“The authority has finally captured Yamada Yukio, accused of killing his wife and daughter in a raptus of psychotic violence. The man…” the journalist talks as the man gets brought out in handcuffs and his head gets covered by a hood - too late, though, Kira has already seen him. 

“Would he do?” Kira asks and Ryuzaki can’t believe what he’s offering. 

Killing that man in front of him… 

Ryuzaki nods, speechless, his skin crawling, his heart furiously beating. 

Light takes from his hands the hotel pen and bends over the sheet. The point of it hovers over the paper for what feels like a century, then Light turns to him, offering it back. “Or would you prefer to do it?” 

L shakes his head violently, refusing it so vehemently Light wonders if it’s just to push back the temptation. 

“No? What are you afraid of?”

 _What am I afraid of?_

That man would surely be condemned to the death penalty. 

_What am I afraid of? I’m afraid of you, Kira. I’m afraid of becoming you._

“I can't be both jury and judge.”

“Why not?” 

“Because… that leads to tyranny. You have the monopoly of justice.” 

“But it worked. Criminality has dropped significantly, people are afraid of divine wrath and behave as they should.” 

“Why are discussing ethics?”

“Why weren't we before. I’m trying to understand your point of view, I really admire your mind, it would be a pity for us to fight till one of us dies.”

“You're not sure to win?”

“I may be a God, but I'm not an omniscient and omnipotent one.” 

“Humble,” L scoffs. 

“So, this Yamada Yukio. Do you want to do it? Or shall I?”

“I can't -”

“Very well, then,” Light writes the name and leaves the pen on the desk. “Now we wait.”

It takes forty seconds then the man dies. 

It would shock L so much more if only he was the first man he saw die. 

“Why are you showing me this?” L asks, “why are you revealing your secrets to me? Why are you entrusting me with your life?” 

Light takes a step back.

“Geniality usually calls for solitude. When people around you are so stupid even the most basic conversation becomes tiring one tries to seclude himself. You, on the other hand… your mind…” 

“What do you want, Light?” 

“Everything,” Light whispers, “I could have the world. And you could have it with me.”

“Greed? I thought it would be pride,” L mocks him. 

“Greed, pride, wrath, envy, gluttony, sloth… lust,” he whispers a few inches from his mouth and Lawliet shivers at the feel of his breath over his skin, “I can own them all. I could create an eight if I so wish.” 

Light taps nonchalantly the pen over his phalanges. 

“The tv is still talking about crimes, you know? It rises their ratings. Look a madman trying to rob a supermarket has taken the clients as hostages. Doesn't it remind you of something?”

“Your first kill,” L breathes.

“Yes, my first kill,” there’s nostalgia in his tone. “But I’m not gonna kill this one.”

L eyes him, wearily, analyzing his expression. “If I wanna save these people, I need to do it, is that what you are saying?”

Light grins. “Yes. I’m not interfering. This will play out exactly as it should, no divine intervention. Well, unless you can’t stand to see some people killed.”

“You don’t know he’s gonna kill them.” 

“I don’t. But usually, the right lays with the one who thinks the worst. It’s a gamble. Fifteen hostages or one kidnapper? Fifteen anonymous or this Sato Akira?"

“No.” 

“Fine. Wash your hands, then.” 

“I’m not -” 

“You are. I’m giving you the power to change things for the better. You prefer to be a bystander. I won’t criticize your choice. I thought you were different though.”

“Just because I’m not willing to kill someone…” 

“Aren't you?” 

“Of course I am not.” 

“Then take this damn pen. Hold it in your hand as you watch those people get slaughtered. You are condemning them.” 

“You won’t make me see things as you do. It’s wrong.” 

“How is it wrong? If a policeman had that man in the line of fire he would have already shot. You have that man at gunpoint and you are refusing to pull the trigger before he kills his hostages.” 

Light grips his chin in his hand, forcing his head up to meet his stare. 

“What’s your moral imperative now? Thou shall not kill? Primum non nocere? Or is it saving people? Is your soul worthier than any of those innocent people? Would you let them die before dirtying your hands? I know you. I know your hands are already dirty enough you wouldn’t notice another stain.” 

Lawliet truly looks, for the first time, in Light’s eyes, big and angry and full of fervor. 

_He believes it._

_Hell, I believe it._

“Write that name,” Light thrusts the pen into his hands and slams it on the table. “Save them.” 

From the television speakers, the bang of a gunshot thunders in the room. 

“Now!” Light bellows. 

Tentatively, L unscrews the cap of the pen and lays it down on the paper. 

_Am I really gonna do it?_

Another shot. 

“You’re down to thirteen. You can still save those,” Light whispers in his ear, tempting as the snake in the garden of Eden. 

Sato… 

Lawliet hesitates. 

“Bang,” Light pressures him.

…Akira.

It’s done. 

“Forty seconds,” Light reminds him and Lawliet feels like he’s about to throw up. 

“The hostages are leaving the supermarket!” The journalist screams in the background but neither of them is watching the screen right now. 

“It looks like the kidnapper had a heart attack. Further investigation is to be made, but the man was thirty-five years old, so maybe we should thank Kira for this…” 

The journalist gets censored and gets cut off and suddenly there’s advertisement streaming. 

“Yes, we should thank Kira” Light grins, and grins, and grins until he’s all sharp teeth and a manic laugh. “Thank you.” 

Lawliet shivers, because he has done it. Has done it and no divine lighting as struck him down - not that he expected it to, but still…Thou shall not kill and yet he did and he’s still there and thirteen people are still alive. 

Adrenaline is rushing in his blood, and his muscles are so tense and he just feels like he had run a marathon even if he had done absolutely nothing. 

“How do you feel?” Light asks, bothered and worried and the perfect university student he’s playing when everyone’s watching. 

“Tired. You don’t need to pretend concern.” 

“But I’m not pretending,” and as he smiles, Lawliet can still see the edges the sharpness of his soul. “I really want you to be fine.” 

Light tilts his chin with a finger and then kisses him. 

It’s chaste, Lawliet’s first kiss, and it’s happening after he killed a criminal and became part of the most famous serial killer ever.

How fitting

And worse, worse than killing, worse than kissing back Kira, worse than everything it’s that he has to look at himself and know that he had got into the situation on his own - he can’t even pretend Light forced him to, he didn’t threaten him, he just let him choose. 

Light lets him go and takes a step back. 

“Not that I want to, but I can't kill you now. I don't know your name and I don't want you to give it up to me. Let's call it your life insurance. You can keep the paper, you’ll need it…”

L doesn’t even try to protest. 

“I know you can still kill me with that sheet… But, as it is, you could also put a bullet through my head, right Ryuzaki?” 

Light doesn’t even wait for a reply and unfastens his towel, dropping it on the floor.

“Are you coming to bed, L?” 

Lawliet looks at the paper, at the bed and closes his eyes, overwhelmed. 

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

But maybe he could try to be different. 

Maybe he could even succeed. 

Maybe he’s just foolish and insane as Light. 

“Yes, I’m coming.” 

* * * 

The detectives at the headquarter look at him and L doesn’t lie. 

“Light Yagami can’t possibly be Kira. He was with me when Sato Akira was killed and he did nothing.”

Soichiro Yagami looks really relieved. 

“Actually, with his amazing deductive skills, he’s gonna became part of the task force.” 

Light, as his side, smiles, and blushes, playing the really sheepish genius who doesn’t want to stand up. 

Hiding in plain sight. 

And L has stared enough in the abyss for the abyss to stare into him. 


End file.
